Contact with team mate may have led to Bortoleto’s crash · F1 · RaceFans

Sauber is looking into the possibility Gabriel Bortoleto’s race-ending crash last weekend was not caused by driver error.

Bortoleto crashed out of his first grand prix on lap 46, shortly after he changed to intermediate tyres as the rain returned. He originally believed he lost control of his car on a kerb and apologised to the team for his mistake.

However speaking in today’s FIA press conference Bortoleto said Sauber has not ruled out mechanical failure as a contributing factor. He said contact between him and Nico Hulkenberg on the first lap of the race may have weakened a suspension part and led to it failing later.

“We are still struggling to fully understand what happened there,” he said. “What is clear for us is that there was contact, I think with Nico.

“It was a racing incident – it was very small contact in turn three. We were side by side, and he had a small snap and touched my rear tyre. I didn’t even feel it at the moment, but when we re-watched the race, we saw it. So maybe that’s one of the possibilities.”

The team’s analysis has produced “nothing conclusive” so far, said Bortoleto. “The team is still studying and analysing it back at the factory to try to understand the real reason why it broke.

“We also need to determine if it influenced my spin the corner before or if that was purely my mistake from hitting the kerb.”

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Bortoleto also confirmed he experienced braking problems throughout much of the race. Aside from those difficulties he felt his first grand prix weekend was “very solid”.

“Quali was good, [free practice sessions] were very solid as well,” he said. “I improved a lot through the sessions. In quali I managed to do a decent lap in Q1 and then tried a bit too hard in Q2.

“But in the race it was very tricky. I’ve heard from some drivers that there won’t be many races more difficult than this one in your career – slicks to wet, then wet to slicks again, dry, then wet again.

“A lot of things happened, and we take learnings from that – how to behave in a race like this, when to push, when to not push, when to take risks. And obviously, through the race as well, we had some fights around, and it was just good to understand a bit how racing in Formula 1 is.”